Every year, right around this time, the beginning of October, my old friend Roger would start to get antsy, with a faraway look in his eyes. 

Although I knew the reason why, for the fun of it I always asked. And “Rog” would always answer: “Very soon, the landlocks will be running in Lake George, and I can’t wait!”

Of all the fishing that we did, there’s no question that Roger loved fishing for landlocked salmon most of all. So once October rolled around, this eagerly awaited annual ritual continued. 

By mid-October, Lake George landlocks began to head to the mouths of the tributary streams at the onset of their annual spawning migration. That’s when Roger, his wife and a  few good friends would head to Lake George to fish for landlocks. 

These fishing trips usually began right around Columbus Day. Salmon fishing, whether it be for landlocks, or Atlantic salmon in the Canadian Maritimes, is not like trout fishing. First of all, there is no dry fly fishing. In our case, fishing for landlocks involved casting streamer flies with a 6-weight fly rod using relatively short leaders, normally about seven feet long, tapered to 2x in order to cast large streamers. Favorite patterns were the Gray Ghost and Light Edison Tiger. 

But being somewhat of an independent, I tied my own streamer, which was designed to imitate smelts, the natural food of Lake George landlocks. I called it the Little Smelt.

Fishing for landlocks in Lake George means carefully wading around the tributary mouths and casting out into the lake. It also means cast after cast after, with very few strikes. After several seasons fishing for landlocks in Lake George, I felt satisfied and rewarded if I hooked and landed one salmon per trip. 

Because the water around the tributary mouths is relatively shallow, landlocks are extremely wary and inclined to head to deeper water if too much disturbance is made by wading anglers. I observed a classic example of this type of behavior one cool, gray late October day, at the mouth of one of our favorite tributaries. Several of us had been fishing about that tributary for about half an hour with no results. After a while, we all returned to shore to get warm by the fire and have a hot drink. 

After about 20 minutes, I saw a salmon roll about 15 yards off the mouth of the brook. So while the others chatted, I grabbed my rod, carefully waded in, and cast where I saw the salmon roll.

On the second cast, the rod tip bent sharply and I was hooked up. After a 10-minute struggle, I landed what turned out to be a five-pound male salmon in prime condition. Since it was a chilly day, I laid the fish on the stones next to the tributary, only to see a brazen mink slink along and try to drag the fish off! 

The Lake George landlocked salmon fishery peaked in the 1980s and again in 2009 and 2010. Declines in the smelt population, an increase in the lake trout population, and possibly some fishery management changes might have been the cause. As an aside, because natural reproduction by adult landlocks was insufficient, the fishery was maintained through annual plants of seven-inch yearlings.

For years, as in Lake George, there was good fly fishing for landlocks primarily in the tributaries to Lake Champlain, such as the AuSable and Boquet rivers. In 1991 and ‘92, the DEC conducted a lamprey eradication program on all the major tributaries of the lake by treating the lampreys with a larvicide, because adult lampreys were preying on landlocks. A web search revealed that Lake Champlain and its tributaries still provide fall fly fishing for landlocked salmon. The Great Lakes tributaries also support fall spawning runs of large landlocks. 

Sadly, there is no landlocked salmon fishing in the Catskills. Years ago, the DEC managed the Neversink Reservoir and the Neversink River for landlocked salmon. That fishery thrived for several years, until the state changed its management policy. So fishing that system is no longer productive; plus, access is limited. 

Even though the landlocked salmon fishery is not what it once was in Lake George, I’m guessing that persistent anglers might find a few fish off the mouth of Hague Brook at the north end of the lake.

Anglers who wish to fish for these rare and beautiful salmonids will have to travel and do a lot of casting to catch perhaps one landlocked salmon in a day of fishing. I did just that on the many trips I made to Lake George in the 1980s and caught maybe a dozen landlocks for my effort. That’s precisely what fishing for landlocked salmon is all about, and I’m very fortunate to have had that rare and unique experience.